Pages

Monday, 17 October 2016

Le Voyage dans la Lune Science Fiction Film

Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) is a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. It was inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's novels From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon. The film features an ensemble cast of French theatrical performers, led by Méliès himself in the main role of Professor Barbenfouillis, and is filmed in the overtly theatrical style for which Méliès became famous. It is widely regarded as the earliest example of the science fiction film genre and, more generally, as one of the most influential films in cinema history. The story follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return to Earth with a captive Selenite. The film was an internationally popular success on its release, and was extensively pirated by other studios, especially in the United States. Its unusual length, lavish production values, innovative special effects, and emphasis on storytelling were markedly influential on other film-makers. The film disappeared into obscurity after Méliès's retirement from the film industry, but it was rediscovered around 1930, when Méliès's importance to the history of cinema was beginning to be recognized by film devotees. An original hand-colored print was discovered in 1993 and restored in 2011. The 2011 film Hugo weaves the story of a young orphaned boy around the story of the discovery of Méliès and his most famous film. A Trip to the Moon was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century by The Village Voice, ranked 84th. The film remains the best-known of the hundreds of films made by Méliès, and the moment in which the capsule lands in the Moon's eye remains one of the most iconic and frequently referenced images in the history of cinema.